A Microsoft official admitted that Windows 7 is inspired by Apple’s operating system (Microsoft official admits Windows 7 design inspired by Mac OS X).
In other news, the Droid is inspired by the iPhone, cigarettes lead to cancer, consuming alcohol will get you drunk, and the Pope poops (when he’s having a good day).
Reading that post gave me the urge to state the obscenely obvious.
I picked my Droid on Friday, and so far I’m very happy with it. I will write a full review in a day or so after I’ve really played, and gotten to know it.
Immediately after getting my Droid, I went to my friend Eric’s wedding. His wife baked a special cake for him, so I took a picture of it with my Droid.
Eric, you chose wisely.
This is incredibly an incredibly useful chart if you are looking to buy a new mobile device.
AT&T doesn’t even look good on paper.
Thanks to @takabanana for making and sharing this spreadsheet.
The first real challenger to the iPhone looks like it will be Droid. I haven’t read anything but great stuff coming from the people who have seen the über smart.
It has an iPhone look complete with touch screen, but it also has a slide out QWERTY keyboard (WIN)
The device is made by Motorola; powered by Google’s mobile operating system, Android; and it will be sold through Verizon, thus it will be on Verizon’s awesome network.
Droid will run the latest version of Android, which looks incredible (see The Boy Genius’s write-up).
If the hardware reports are true, then Droid will have the same processor core as the iPhone, making it far more powerful than previous Android phones (Engadget).
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is decrying Android’s imminent explosion in the marketplace, while analysts’ are talking about Android’s potential for market domination by 2012.
Verizon is also going all out with their marketing. In the lead up to the announcement of Droid, they have been bashing AT&T’s flimsy network with their cleaver, “There’s a map for that” ads.
Then their Droid announcement ad launched a flurry of attacks on the iPhone’s limitations.
“The Droid poses a different and more significant challenge to the iPhone than any other phone to date. The Palm Pre could have been that challenger, but it lacked the Verizon network, and users were unimpressed with the hardware. According to people who’ve handled the device, the Droid is the most sophisticated mobile device to hit the market to date from a hardware standpoint. When you combine that with the Verizon network, you’ve got something that is most definitely a challenger to the Jesus phone” (TechCrunch).
If Droid is everything that Motorola, Google, Verizon, and the tech writers are claiming it should be incredibly exciting (The claims are pretty much confirmed). Better still, Droid should be available within a few weeks.
Pay close attention to the oddly placed umlaut under the "r"
It’s clear to me that Droid means business because it has an unnecessary umlaut in its name.
~ syndicated by TheGeekWhisperer.com
The Academy Award for best use of a Metallica song goes to… Zombieland!
It also won the award for best celebrity cameo… but I really can’t tell you who, it would spoil far too much.
Seriously, I laughed so hard in this movie, it hurt. I’ve been out of the theaters for hours and I’m still laughing at it. When I go to work in the morning, I will be shocked if the clock strikes 9:30 and someone hasn’t made a Zombieland joke (I saw it with a number of my coworkers).
I’m calling it now: Cult classic.
The humor in this movie was brilliant and so geeky; I loved every second of it.
They don’t waste lines, they don’t waste scenes, the characters are likable, every odd joke is tied back to the characters in strangely meaningful ways (Twinkines anyone?), and it avoids all of the stupid horror clichés such as:
Every victim in modern horror films must be on AT&T. Take that iPhone users! …with your cool phone and crappy network.
Go see Zombieland.
Regular readers here know that I am really angry about some of Apple’s business practices regarding the iPhone App Store.
However, it does look like Apple is paying attention, not to me, but the wider Internet community.
Hopefully, “we’re listening to your feedback,” will turn into action.
You didn’t just have a seizure (probably), and you aren’t tripping (probably), you read that headline correctly.
Apple has rejected a dictionary app because it contained the definitions of vulgar words like “fuck” and “shit.”
The story is more complicated than that, and honestly makes Apple’s insane App application process look even worse. For more on that you can find the whole story on Daring Fireball.
This ladies and gentlemen is why I don’t own an iPhone. As long as Apple is going is going censor things like dictionaries, I won’t be using their phone. I’ve taken a stand and proudly say…
The definition of obscenity is arbitrary at best. There are no words in English, or any other language that are inherently obscene or evil. By that I mean that there is no sound a human can utter that is evil on it’s own. We apply meaning to words on our own. It’s a personal and cultural choice, not something for a computer company can dictate.
You disagree??? You think that the words “fuck,” or perhaps nearly every American’s least favorite word “cunt (that’s right, I went there),” are inherently obscene?
If that were the case, the words would be obscene in any language, in every culture, throughout all of human history. They aren’t and weren’t. We made the words, and we gave them meaning. In 100 years, they probably won’t have the same meaning.
This kind of crap happens so regularly that it would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic. Apple will end up approving this dictionary app, and all will be well… except for the fact that Apple is still stifling innovation over arbitrary rules… and I’m not even talking about the Google Voice scandal.
The latest version of iTunes (8.2.1) kills the Palm Pre’s ability to sync with iTunes. The Palm Pre is a smart phone aimed to compete with Apple’s iPhone.
That is seriously nasty on Apple’s part. Way to screw over your own users while maliciously attacking the lesser competition.
That’s another black mark on Apple.
The Justice Department is looking into the relationship between AT&T and Apple for possible violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
Among the areas the Justice Department could explore is whether wireless carriers are hurting smaller competitors by locking up popular phones through exclusive agreements with handset makers, according to the people. In recent weeks lawmakers and regulators have raised questions about deals such as AT&T’s exclusive right to provide service for Apple Inc.’s popular iPhone in the U.S (The Business Insider).
I’m curious to see how this plays out. Either way, AT&T’s iPhone exclusivity deal is set to expire in about a year, and I can’t imagine Apple renewing it; AT&T’s network sucks. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have had a call from an iPhone on AT&T’s network drop.
My computer is dying. A slow and painful death.
It hums. It moans. It groans. It hisses.
It gurgles at me.
Apparently this is the sound of a laptop’s motherboard and hard drive simultaneously giving up.
I’ve had this HP Pavilion since August 03, the summer before I left for college. It’s survived. I used it for three and half years of school, during which I’m sure a few droplets of a Malibu Baybreeze here or there caressed it’s insides. I ferried it back and forth to the city when my job demanded it of me. It survived countless moves from CT back to NY for vacations or residency changes. It was the little engine that could.
This computer has always been on the verge of death. I don’t know how many times David has reformatted this thing and slowly brought it back from the grave. I’ve had to send it back to HP in the middle of the semester my junior year so they could tinker with, never mind how many papers I’ve lost because hey, maybe it will just turn off mid-sentence. I’ve brought it to computer centers, and even those morons from Best Buy’s Geek Squad have had the pleasure of trying to resuscitate this thing.
Oh, how nice. As I type this I hear and feel this machine struggling with life. It’s as though a rumble pack is attached to it.
My CD drive is completely broken. It’s missing essential programs and system operations. The fans don’t work so I use a cooling pad underneath it. The screen can’t be lowered, and the mechanism that dims the monitor had to be turned off since it would spaz out and go to black. I’ve seen the blue screen of death numerous times in the past two years. Some days the internet access slows down so much that everything constantly times out. I can’t access the button functions on the side to control the volume. It’s eaten through a pair of speakers. Sometimes it decides to disable my security programs and all of my USB ports are loose.
Did I mention the gurgling?
HP as a brand and in terms of durability isn’t totally worthless, but their customer service, troubleshooting and warranties all are. However this laptop has definitely prevailed where other better treated and maintained machines have crumbled. Seriously, I have never taken good care of it.
The advice that David has given me, that you should all follow as well, is BACK UP what is precious to you. I’ve put most of the things I care about on my external hard drive already, and will continue to do so until my laptop officially expires.
Share with me the experience of my computer’s impending doom! If my computer had an iPhone (or was a sentient being for that matter..) it would totally have the iDie app on it. But unlike the zombies I love so much, when this thing dies again, I don’t think it be able to rise from it’s own digital ashes.
At least I can still read my favorite web sites!
Here’s a nifty trip from Lifehacker.
When typing words that are not part of the iPhone’s dictionary (such as slang or other languages), the auto-correct can be a real pain. A way to trip the auto-correct and make it stop working is to type behind a “z.” Not many words have a “z” in it so the auto-correct doesn’t even have a guess to hassle you with.
Apple’s App Store, the place that makes iPhone applications available to the public likes to play censor every so often. Today they rejected the latest version of the Twitter client, Tweetie because the application may contain obscenity.
The basic idea of rejection because it may contain obscenity is pretty insane, but I haven’t actually told you the crazy part yet.
Brace yourself…
Here it comes…
The application does not contain obscenity.
It has been rejected because it searches the micro-blogging site Twitter, and Twitter’s posts may contain obscenity.
The decision is remarkable. By that standard Apple’s own web browser Safari also contains obscenity, and porn… hell, it even contains child porn because it contains anything that the Internet contains.
Here’s what’s going to happen - Everyone online will go nuts over this (especially the Twitterati) until Apple reverses its decision.
As Apple grows and gains market-share their penchant for censorship and absolute control will become exceptionally threatening.
To my knowledge, big, bad, monopolistic, Microsoft never pull this kind of shit (note the intentional obscenity).
Apple has resolved this properly and allowed Tweetie. However allowing the application doesn’t resolve the larger problem of Apple exercising excessive control over users and developers.
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